MX Superfly

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By Matt Casamassina

During the last several years there have been a dozen or more notable dirt bike racing games for various consoles. Some, like Excitebike 64 on the Nintendo 64, have gone onto greatness while others, unbalanced and unpolished, have suffered more unfavorable fates. Xbox has plenty of racing and extreme sports games, but nothing that quite fits with what MX Superfly offers outside of the decent MX 2002 Featuring Ricky Carmichael. The quality racers have another addition with MX Superfly, packed full of tracks, riders, and trick opportunities. Superfly feels finely tuned, looks refined, and impresses with its tight, if floaty mechanics and plentiful modes of play. It's not a perfect racer, but it's a darn good one.

Features

Expanded freestyle mode with more of what's made the MX franchise dominate

Mini-games, tons of arenas and wide-open worlds with secret areas to explore

The only game featuring Ricky Carmichael, seven-time AMA National Champion. Play as RC or one of 26 other pros in the all-new roster of real riders from the 125cc, 250cc, and freestyle ranks

Stunt Track Editor allows you to build your own ramps, jumps and obstacles to test the limits of your bike

Racing and freestyle career modes! The only motocross game where you can Create-A-Rider choosing from the big name sponsors, all six major bike manufacturers and authentic gear. The better you are the more stuff you can buy

The pros get crazier with each competition and so does MX. Pull the new Tsunami , Rock Solid, and every signature move in the sport

Five different multi-player modes both in racing and freestyle, plus mini-games

GameplayMX Superfly is developed by Pacific Coast Power & Light, which is the same team that brought MX 2002 to Xbox. It's clear that the goal with Superfly was to fix the problems of MX 2002 and offer a slew more goodies to satisfy dirt bike fans. Superfly, running on RenderWare, is packed full of features and options including 14 pro riders, 22 tracks set across indoor and outdoor environments (with some exclusive locales like Loretta Lynnis), and more. Also, in its attempt to bring gamers the most well-rounded dirt-biker racer on the market, the developer has not only enhanced the regular exhibition courses, but expanded the freestyle mode as well so that players can compete for big air and tricks on a wide variety of tracks designed specifically for those goals. Additionally, there are mini-games -- 11 in all (up from last year's two), in which riders must do everything from play a virtual game of dirt bike Horse to deliver pizzas, nail targets, slam jumps and the like. The sheer selection of tracks and play types is nothing short of amazing and, indeed, unparalleled by any other dirt bike racer available.

Luckily, PCP&L has realized that a great racer is not engineered by sheer options alone and has also created compelling gameplay mechanics. Players control bikes with the left thumbstick, accelerate with A, and brake with B -- these are the basics. But of course there are other executables that help to increase the strategic element of each race. For example, tapping the B button when going into a sharp turn will result in a mini-powerslide of sorts; doing it correctly not only helps take corners without losing speed, but also feels excellent -- very satisfying. For even sharper turns, though, players can press in on the left thumbstick for a full-blown powerslide. This may seem like a bad idea, but the powerslide works perfectly from the left thumbstick. It's surprisingly comfortable. There are other subtle and not so subtle control additions. Holding and releasing the right trigger before going off a jump, for instance, boosts the power of the jump for some seriously awesome air time. Pulling back or forward on the left thumbstick while in the air will make riders flip backward or forward with analog sensitivity, which is very well done. Similarly, pressing left or right in mid-flight will enable riders to spin their bikes; pulling off a 360-degree turn this way simply rocks. And for those who don't like the face buttons for gas and break can use the right thumbstick for analogue acceleration and breaking, though this really isn't very effective since you need to hit face buttons to do grabs and tricks.

On top of everything else, there is a wide -- really wide -- selection of moves that can be performed, from fakies to supermans to tsunamis, with the right trigger and face buttons while soaring. This system is incredibly unintuitive at first as players will want to be done with the right trigger after they've used it to boost a jump, but with some practice it eventually becomes easier. Never quite easy, but easier. To its credit, at least, the trick system is addicting and worth the time and effort.

The backbone of Superfly is its physics engine, which is a mixture of realistic and arcade. What this ultimately translates to is a play style that is highly floaty -- bikes soar high up into the air and hang there with potential for massive tricks and stunts, but it sometimes comes at the sacrifice of pure adrenaline speed. The floaty gravity of the title, even more so than the over-the-top Excitebike 64, may turn off some players interested in pure speed and nothing else. At the end of the day the racing experience is still fairly fast, it's just not the emphasis. Air junkies, meanwhile, are sure to be thrilled at the prospect of catching some of the truly gargantuan, chasm-clearing jumps featured at every corner in the game. Personally, we love it, and just as intriguing are the tracks themselves, which are designed to branch in multiple paths. In Freestyle Mode, crafty riders will even discover hidden areas to levels, including an Area 51 spoof complete with aliens and spaceship shadowed in the desert.

The meat and potatoes of the title is its Career Mode, in which players create a rider from scratch, start him or her on an amateur tour and then go pro, earning cash, unlocking new courses and circuits, and generally advancing through the game. It isn't easy. Even on the beginning circuit, players may at first have trouble scoring first place against rider AI (up to 12 other bad boys on screen), and pro tours will absolutely have them pulling at their hair. The true testament to the game's balance and design, though, is that even after losing, gamers will want to try again and again until they get it. And if that's not one's cup of tea, they can play around in the Freestyle Career Mode, go for single Exhibition races, or have at some of the mini-games.